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SUNNYVALE (KCBS)— Silicon Valley insiders are saying big changes at Yahoo could be afoot in the coming weeks, including layoffs and another restructuring.

News of thousands of potential layoffs broke Friday when the Wall Street Journal reported that they were informed by their sources of the tech industry shakeup.

The search engine has struggled before and now needs to become “leaner and meaner” according to Tim Bajarin, industry consultant and President of Creative Strategies based in Campbell.

“We’ve been down this path. This is the third time in five years,” Bajarin said of the company that named a new CEO in January after being without a leader for four months.

That CEO, Scott Thompson, has reportedly been meeting with his top deputies at the company.

Bajarin said Thompson has finally come to the conclusion about what needs to be done in the company’s restructuring and that we should be hearing more specific details in the coming week.

The layoffs are expected to be on a global scale with numbers in the thousands. Bajarin said the second part of the strategy will be to concentrate on a couple of key revenue generating areas, including media and advertising.

“They actually do have a tremendous amount of content as well as an incredible brand. From the standpoint of actual users per month, they’re in the top three,” Bajarin added.

The days of Yahoo ruling the internet may be gone (replaced by Google for now) but Bajarin said coming up in the rear-view mirror is Facebook, with its built-in customer base and that it’s tinkering with new search technologies.

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